‘What do you mean by a nature?--Explain yourself.’ ‘I canna explain mysel ony better,’ was the answer; ‘only I ken that a cat’s no a dog, nor o’ a nature to be,--and so the Laird could ne’er be a man o’ sense.’ ‘Very ingenious, indeed,’ said Mr. Threeper; ‘and I am sure the gentlemen of the jury must be satisfied that it is not possible to give a clearer--a more distinctive impression of the deficiency of Mr. Walkinshaw’s capacity, than has been given by this simple and innocent country girl.--But, Jenny, can you tell us of any instance of his daftness?’ ‘I can tell you o’ naething but the sic-like about him.’ ‘Cannot you remember any thing he said or did on any particular day?’ ‘O aye, atweel I wat I can do that--on the vera day when I gaed hame, frae my service at the Grippy to Mr. George’s, the sheep were sheared, and Mr. Watty said they were made sae naked, it was a shame to see them, and took one o’ his mother’s flannen polonies, to mak a hap to Mall Loup-the-Dike, the auld ewe, for decency.’ Jenny was then cross-questioned by Mr. Queerie, the able and intelligent advocate employed for the defence by Mr. Keelevin; but her evidence was none shaken, nor did it appear that her master had in any way influenced her. Before she left the box, the Sheriff said jocularly,-- ‘I’m sure, from your account, Jenny, that Mr. Walkinshaw’s no a man ye would like to marry?’ ‘There’s no saying,’ replied Jenny,--‘the Kittlestonheugh’s a braw estate; and mony a better born than me has been blithe to put up wi’ houses and lan’s, though wit and worth were baith wanting.’ The first witness thus came off with considerable eclat, and indeed gained the love and affections, it is said, of one of the jurors, an old bien carle, a bonnet-laird, to whom she was, in the course of a short time after, married. The next witness was Mr. Mordecai Saxheere, preses and founder of that renowned focus of sosherie the Yarn Club, which held its periodical libations of the vintage of the colonies in the buxom Widow Sheid’s tavern, in Sour-Milk John’s Land, a stately pile that still lifts its lofty head in the Trongate. He was an elderly, trim, smooth, Quaker-faced gentleman, dressed in drab, with spacious buckram-lined skirts, that came round on his knees, giving to the general outline of his figure the appearance of a cone supported on legs in white worsted hose. He wore a highly powdered horse-hair wig, with a long queue; buckles at the knees and in his shoes, presenting, in the collective attributes of his dress and appearance, a respect-bespeaking epitome of competency, good-eating, honesty, and self-conceit. He was one of several gentlemen whom the long-forecasting George had carried with him to Grippy on those occasions when he was desirous to provide witnesses, to be available when the era should arrive that had now come to pass. ‘Well, Mr. Saxheere,’ said the Edinburgh advocate, ‘what have you to say with respect to the state of Mr. Walter Walkinshaw?’